ROME, 2005 – “…Knowledge and documentation are indispensable practices for efficiently dealing with problems related to the preservation and safeguard of a historical building: the process of understanding a monument is not only achieved through historical and bibliographical documentation but also through the acquisition of information obtained through direct observations, which is the primary source of discoveries and also an essential method of verification. Last, but not least, is the importance of the geographical area in which the building was constructed, without which it would not even had a reason to exist. The in-depth study of a building under the historic-graphic and critical aspects and interpretation of architectural concepts can all be summarized in the “evaluation” [qiudizio di valore], which must be made by taking into account the historical period in which the building, the object of the present study, was constructed.”

ROME, 2005 – “…A movement to remove the highway [via dell Impero | later renamed Via dei Fori Imperiali] was started by the archaeologists [in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s]. The new generation of Bianchi Bandinelli protégés [= i.e., Prof. Adriano La Regina & Prof. Andrea Carandini] was coming into power, replacing the quiescent left over bureaucrats of the immediate postwar period. As students of Roman topography they wanted the information about imperial Rome that lay buried beneath the Via dei Fori Imperiali. As confident young Euro-archaeologists who had been trained in high quality Anglo-Italian projects, they wanted to demonstrate to the world that the era of fascist incompetence was over, and that younger Italian could do field work that would match the best standards in Europe. Finally their leftist political orientation to do archaeology that explored the lives of ordinary Romans in the past and not the regimes’ propaganda and ideology. (…)

Naturally surviving old fascists and emerging neo-fascists opposed this attack on one of the most visible reminders of Il Duce in the city. An influential body of urban historians argued that whatever its political associations the Via dei Fori Imperiali was now part of the historical fabric of the city and should be preserved. To destroy it would to commit an act of urbanistic vandalism of the type for which the fascists were often blamed. Finally the traffic engineers weighed, asked the very practical question as to what was to be done with the cars once that major artery was closed. (…)

The archaeologists were persistent, and applied salami tactics to the park lands surrounding the road itself. Ironically, for the city so often divided since 1870 between the sacred and secular, it was the Giubileo that provided both the incentives and the funds for final major assault by the Marxist shaped archaeologists on the Via dei Fori Imperiali.

Almost all of the land on either side of the road was cleared and excavated by the teams of often very young and ambitious archaeologists. Both ideological inspiration and professional pride led to a very different type of project designed to remind the public how bad technically and narrow intellectually the fascist excavations had been led them to want to remove this very visible reminder of the fascist era. (…)

Visitors to the Fori Imperiali excavations see preserved and highlighted early modern houses and early medieval streets as well as the imperial monuments. Panels explained what the archaeologists were doing and what were the results was a Gramscian gesture to seize the means of production…”

Prof. Stephen L. Dyson,

“From Mazzini to Richard Meier: Shifting Ideology and Archaeological Policy in Italy from 1870 to the Present.”